


Dry Spell

by notluvulongtime



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 11:39:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5289290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notluvulongtime/pseuds/notluvulongtime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A love-starved Lestrade is determined to get back on active duty by going deep undercover with Sherlock on a case, unwittingly putting the safety of their children in jeopardy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This occurs in the same universe as [Slow Burn](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3203111/chapters/6965912). It’s been many years later; Sherlock and Lestrade are married and have two children, Grace and Tristan. Gregs’s been taken off active duty at the Met because of those old injuries slowing him down. It's not necessary to have read Slow Burn but it might help a little.
> 
> To be completely honest, this is the first Sherstrade fic I ever wrote, but it’s never been completed. I was constantly changing stuff, but I think I have a handle on it now. It’s still a WIP but I wanted to share a little of it for 2015 Gravesgiving as a thank you to everyone who loves rare pairs. I’m so grateful for the solidarity of Sherstrade shippers. You are wonderful.
> 
> Special thanks to [Impish Tubist](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishTubist/pseuds/ImpishTubist) for always wanting to know what happens next.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: The usual; I don’t own these characters, duh.

*

Greg just wanted to quell the ache and get it over with.

Because he didn’t want to think about what the act really meant to him anymore. He had a meeting with the chief superintendent and his glaring lack of self-confidence was getting to him.

He wanted his old job back, damned leg (as John would have said at one point) and all. He just wanted to stop thinking about how inadequate he felt (even though he knew that wasn’t true) and he wanted to feel as young as his mind was fit to be (even though keeping up with two rambunctious children was enough to tax his ability to communicate, let alone articulate).

It was the fifth time in so many days and Greg felt guilty even though he knew he had every right to feel justified. How long had it been since he and Sherlock last been intimate? He couldn’t help thinking that the lull in their sex life coincided with the incident that got him sidelined to a desk job, and that was more than six months ago. After recovering from the burns (both physically and mentally), Greg had always been the more demonstrative one – the partner, the husband who voiced his needs and was willing to cross the boundaries and put himself out there.

But when you’d been rejected countless times in the last six months? It was enough to put a kink, a knot in the works and make him question his own attractiveness again, capabilities that bled into other areas. On realizing he could get his old job back, he uncovered a newfound insomnia that lasted for the past week. During the day, he was restless with anxiety. The only cure for this was a good, exhausting wank – which he attempted when Sherlock and the children were out for a few hours via case or school, respectively. And that’s what Greg was striving to accomplish that morning before the big interview.

He’d unwrapped the new bar of soap and ran it under the showerhead’s spray until it was properly sudsed up. He’d turned away from the head, hand fully prepped and ready to grasp an already frustrated erection building from that morning. With the other, he tried his best to bite into the meatiest part of his palm until he came, shudderingly-slackened into the slick tile walls, silent, his eyes tightly shut, the rivulets of hot water coursing down his well-worn back.

He was so preoccupied with the sudden relief he felt that he almost missed the sound of the toilet’s flush which was soon followed by a dousing of scalding hot water –

Greg let out a yelp, sidestepped the spray and pulled aside the curtain enough so that his drenched head poked out to find Grace doing up her trousers. From the innocent expression on her face, it appeared she had no idea what her dad had been up to only minutes before but still, Greg mentally rewound the tape in his head, trying to go over just how much noise he could’ve made.

“Grace,” he gasped, “Aren’t you late for school?”

She started washing her hands and shrugged, “Tristan forgot his science project so we had to come back and I needed a wee.”

“Of course you did.”

She wiped her hands on the towel, “Bye, Daddy! Have a good talk with Scary Super!” Grace was out of the bathroom like a shot, leaving the door wide open and letting all the cozy steam out with it.

Feeling that cold blast of reality as a cue to shower’s end, Greg heaved out a sigh and shut off the taps, grabbing a towel from the rack next to it to dry himself.

At the time, ‘Scary Super’ was something Tristan had nicknamed the relatively new Chief Super O’Leary - ever since the man had laid into Greg and Sherlock after a particularly lengthy and difficult case had tried his patience, stretching the Yard’s resources to a breaking point. John had dropped the kids off at the Yard at the same moment O’Leary was getting to the middle act of his tirade – not directed at Sherlock, for Sherlock didn’t care – but at Greg, because Greg would take it.

Ever since he’d been relegated to a desk job while Sherlock went ‘round running about as usual, Greg was _always_ taking it. In fact, it seemed like he was taking it more than usual because D.I. Lestrade wasn’t there as go-between for the new Yarders, negotiating his husband’s tendency to become abrasive when he was impatient or bored. And he felt guiltier now that Sally was doing most of the heavy lifting on scene.

Not that Sherlock wouldn’t stand up for his husband in these rows with the higher ups, but the case this time had worn both of them to shreds of what they normally were. Sherlock hadn’t eaten in days (no big surprise), subsisting on coffee and nicotine patches and little else, and was splayed on the couch in Greg’s office, coming down from the high of solving another case, completely enervated beyond recognition.

So imagine the mess the delayed reaction caused when both of them had to pry Grace off of O’Leary. They’d missed her stamping on his foot, but were fully brought to action upon seeing her jump on his arthritic lower back to pummel his shoulders and neck. It was quite a sight – since O’Leary was a big, stocky man to begin with – but little Grace (who only weighed a few stone soaking wet by comparison) was running on pure adrenaline, fueled by the initial joy of seeing her two fathers after so long a separation and then ignited by the sudden fury of seeing them berated and bullied by such an ugly man.

Greg suspected that Tristan’s nickname of ‘Scary Super’ was really about being frightened of Grace that day; he had this uncanny knack of knowing that if he half-jokingly coined it soon after the incident, it would mollify her for the rest of the ride home. After the warning looks of I’ll-handle-this from Lestrade, Sherlock struggled to stay silent, but with a not-so-secret smug expression on his face. Greg had to remind Grace that she couldn’t fight like that with kids her own age or older, which she then, with her special brand of learned Sherlockian logic, argued with him about it for the next hour or so.

Grace was always attentive and affectionate, but there was something about that day which brought out a fierce protectiveness neither father of hers had seen before. But if someone had told Greg that she would become her Daddy’s ‘shadow’ after this incident, he would’ve dismissed it.

*   *   *

“So, Lestrade,” O’Leary didn’t so much sink into his chair than deflate it, slamming down several manila folders of Greg’s files on his desk for perusal, “How long has it been since the incident?”

The chief super was speaking of the shot to the leg he’d received while on a case. The doctors said that Greg would never fully recover, but as soon as he was ready, he’d spent a great deal of time afterward challenging that notion. Still, O’Leary was leery of letting him come back; it was his opinion that ruled that day and he still believed that the burn scars had stiffened up his joints. Basically, D.I. Lestrade just couldn’t run as well as he could anymore.

“A little over six months, sir.” Greg then reached into his brief case and pulled out his own file. “I also have rehab records from my physiotherapist, a personal trainer and comments from my tae kwon do instructor –“

“ ‘Tae kwon – what’?” O’Leary peered at him over his glasses.

“It’s a Korean martial art –“

“That oriental self-defense crap? You a black belt now? Should I register you as a ‘lethal weapon with a limp’?”

O’Leary chuckled, having said that a touch louder for the benefit of his secretary walking in, a sympathetic smile shadowing her features and informing Greg just how often she had to put up with her boss’s boorish behavior throughout the day. She set down a few more files and left just as quickly, closing the door softly behind her.

“You’ve kept your nose clean for the most part,” O’Leary grumbled before referring to the new files placed in front of him, “But no amount of paperwork is going to erase the chaos your husband creates for us on a regular basis.”

“Sir, with all due respect, coming back to active duty is part of the reason why I did the physiotherapy, changed my diet – to keep up with Holmes.” Greg never referred to Sherlock in a personal way at work. It did them no favors. “Look at the results of my latest physical. I’ve shed about ten years of bad health…”

It was true; after months of basically eating like a hunter-gatherer (nuts, dried berries, lean game for protein, brown rice, and kale, lots of kale), Lestrade was looking better than ever. If Greg hadn’t been so tunnel-visioned on his singular goal, he’d have noticed the appreciative double takes he’d been given from both sexes, young and older, while riding the Tube and during the walks in the park with the kids after school. But the change in lifestyle wasn’t just to get back to real police work. The shooting had made him recalibrate everything; he wanted to be there for Tristan and Grace far longer than what he felt destiny had in store for him.

“…Donovan does her best, but I’ve worked with her as a team with this man for more than a decade now. We need him. And we need the Yard to continue to work in harmony with him. You look at the files and you’ll see that the results far outweigh the chaos that’s created but I can guarantee that with my – “

A flicker of motion from the drinks machine beyond the chief super’s fishbowl of an office distracted Greg enough for him to lose focus and trail off.

There was a flash of Venetian blond hair behind the hot water dispenser, he was sure of it. Greg squinted and stared in that direction for a few seconds to make sure his aged eyes weren’t deceiving him before refocusing on his boss, who, at present looked rather bemused and more than a bit annoyed.

“Your ‘what,’ Lestrade?”

“M-my, my involvement –“

“You’re already involved. That’s why you work at a desk.”

“You said we could re-evaluate that in a month’s time, to place me back on active duty. Donovan says Anderson’s threatening to quit again and that can’t happen –“

“We could always restrict Holmes’s access,” O’Leary drawled, leaning into his comfy chair, both palms cradling the back of his head as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

Greg resisted showing even a flicker of the panic that idea induced in him every time it was threatened. A bored Sherlock was a Sherlock in pain. And to complicate matters, they had both agreed long ago, prior to the idea of becoming parents, that they would reduce the amount of private cases to almost nil. A majority of the time, the extracurricular work (work for a younger man with no family obligations) proved to be much more hazardous. It took a lot of wheedling on both Greg and John’s part, and Sherlock was still reluctant, but it had eased Greg’s mind a great deal.

In the end, however, the detective inspector knew the chief super was bluffing.

“And have the cold cases pile up? I don’t think the MIT can afford that, do you?”

Greg missed the subsequent moue of distaste from O’Leary, for his eyes suddenly zeroed in on an unmistakable object he recognized that was completely out of place in the department’s common room.

A fluffy baby penguin keychain on the bench in front of the hot water dispenser.

 _Grace_.

Greg’s view went from all colors of the rainbow to red. Someone tiny and troublesome was apparently bunking off school. _Again_.

He began to breathe deeply, clenching and unclenching his fists all the while. As if he weren’t already on edge enough. His eyes flickered back to O’Leary and he began to gather up his files with clear purpose.

The supreme purpose of getting out of there.

“Let’s get to the point, eh?” This was his ‘Daddy Lestrade’ voice, the one where his Bristol accent often made an appearance, “You _need_ Sherlock Holmes and since I’m the one who’s handled him for more than ten years, you need _me_. I’ve looked at the numbers. In the last six months, people have avoided this department, quit, or retired early.

“It’s expensive bringing in new people. And they don’t have the toughness yet. I know you want me to get up in front of you like a right git and dance, but I don’t have to. _Shouldn’t_ have to. Good day, sir.”

He moved to get up and this time, the pale, scared look on O’Leary’s face was unmistakable. It was clear that the man had interpreted their last exchange as Greg’s verbal resignation.

O’Leary grabbed a random file at the top of the teetering tower of an inbox pile he had off to the side and shoved it into Greg’s hands, “Here,” the chief super snarled, “You and Holmes look at this one. No one else will take it, but if you will, you can have your bloody job back, God help you.”

*   *   *

Greg had shoved the dog-eared envelope into his briefcase without a look at either it or the chief super and made his way out of the office and into the common room.

He snatched up the penguin keychain, “ _Grace. Astrid. Holmes. Lestrade._ ” There was equal emphasis on each aspect of her name.

And it was said with enough disciplinary force to compel the lower cabinet doors to open from the inside and produce the imp of a daughter he had had the luck to help conceive eight years before. “Yes, Daddy?”

“What makes you think you can bunk off school, young miss?” There was a stress-induced twinge in the embattled leg of his or he’d be tapping his foot.

She stood up sheepishly, but the defiant expression wasn’t far behind. “I wanted to make sure Scary Super wasn’t going to yell at you.”

Grace then nodded at the keychain in her Daddy’s fist. “And you forgot your lucky charm this morning. I came here to give it to you, but I was too late. So I stayed to watch.”

Greg stuffed the puffy penguin in his left coat pocket and absently brought up both palms to rub the exasperation from his face, mumbling his thoughts aloud, “Your surveillance technique needs work, lil’ constable –“

“I’ll work on it with Papa –“

“What?” Greg’s arms dropped to his sides, his eyes wide, “No! Forget what I just said…”

He pivoted around helplessly. The caffeine from that morning’s coffee was starting to wear off; he was only allowed one cuppa with his new lifestyle regimen, but he was giving the coffee dispenser longing looks anyway.

“Daddy, I’m really sorry. Did you get the job?” Grace took his hand, presumably to lead him to the lifts.

“I dunno, love,” Greg decided to scrap the rest of the day and headed in that direction. “You hungry? Let’s go back to the flat and see if Papa wants to go somewhere for brunch –“

“So you’re not mad at me, Daddy?” she looked up at him with real concern on her face.

Greg could do nothing but caress her lovely hair and smile, “Never, darling.”

*   *   *

Sherlock had waited long enough to ask the pertinent questions.

By this time, the trio had set themselves up at their favourite table at Angelo’s. Angelo, Jr. had had his first baby late the previous year, and they’d refurbished and expanded the restaurant to include a play area for kids in anticipation of the child’s birth. Grace had finished her meal and was now being her bossy self with a couple of the neighborhood’s younger children.

Both men made sure she was out of earshot before addressing the big interview.

“How’d it go with O’Leary,” he said more as a statement than a question, steepled his fingers, and eyed the envelope as Greg pulled out its contents.

“Not worth repeating,” he sighed dismissively while studying the cover page on top. “Apparently this is a case nobody’ll touch –“

“- So naturally it’s ours,” Sherlock snatched the sheaf out of his husband’s hands.

“ _Sherlock_!”

“I read faster than you.” Eyes of steel flickered up only momentarily, as if to deduce Greg completely, “The day’s not even a third over and you look knackered already. Eat something and let my mind do the work.”

Greg dove into the lemon-pepper kale salad with duck breast (a rich, fatty treat) with more gusto than he’d anticipated, studying his husband’s expressions and trying to silently apply the science of deduction to them. His track record was never above average by Sherlock’s standards, but apparently it was enough to have kept his interest all this time. Certainly enough to make the commitment of raising two children. The only thing gnawing at the back of his mind was the total lack of sex life at present. Maybe Sherlock was bored with him after all.

“You’ve got that look again,” Greg pointed with his fork, “This one’s not tedious, I imagine.”

“Far from it, in fact,” Sherlock’s voice was almost giddy. “It’s a prostitution ring,” he looked up from the papers expectantly.

“But not your average one,” Greg squinted, stabbed another forkful of food, took a bite and thought some more. After chewing and swallowing, “It’s not female – you wouldn’t do something so mundane; but even if it was male-oriented - which we’ve done before - you would’ve solved it. Is the file complete?”

Sherlock’s eyes were shining and it made Greg’s heart leap to be so close again.

“Seems so.”

“But you can’t solve it based on that. Must be unusual –“

“Let’s say it’s tailor-made for undercover work.”

“So it _is_ male prostitution –“

“You can go deeper, Lestrade.”

When Sherlock used his last name, it meant they were on a case together. Oh, how long ago that had been. Greg’s heart _ached_ for it. So he took a moment and thought some more.

“It’s not like O’Leary to have a MIT-related male prostitution ring no one will touch. It’s standard work for young coppers.”

The expression on Sherlock’s face told him he was getting somewhere.

“And if it’s undercover work as a male stripper or prostitute, you’ve already said that doesn’t interest you so –“

Sherlock smiled mischievously.

Greg frowned when it hit him, “Oh.” The tiredness was back and his palms were back up to wipe it off his face, “No.” The following deduction came out garbled and strangled, but clear enough for someone who knew him for fifteen or more years to figure out: “It’s a club advertising older men, isn’t it?”

*   *   *

Once they were back at the flat after picking up Tristan from school – and after making Grace swear upon pain of loss of video game privileges that she would not gloat over her day off to him – Lestrade made sure both children were occupied in their own rooms before disassembling the sheaf of papers and spreading them out on the newly-cleared kitchen table.

He was examining the contents and photographs not so much to scrutinize what Sherlock had already observed; it was more a case of trying to make this situation real for him. The crime scene photos were ghastly, horrific. There were so many elements of the case that made it untouchable to anyone on the force, no matter the age, no matter the level of experience. Greg cursed O’Leary under his breath; maybe the dim bastard wasn’t so dim after all. Perhaps the random grab of a file wasn’t so random after all.

By comparison, Sherlock appeared to be as serene and focused as a well-behaved child at afternoon tea, interspersing his keyboard typing with grabbing several pictures that were still suitable to be seen by underage eyes to pin up on the Case Wall, placing victims’ headshots on the corresponding areas of the London map to mark where their bodies had been found.

“They all look like Daddy.”

Both men whipped around to find Tristan staring at the Wall in wonder. Greg shoved the photos he was perusing on the kitchen table facedown into a pile and met Sherlock’s eyes with alarm.

“Papa, why do they look like Daddy?” Tristan was clutching one of the video game controllers, minus its battery cover and batteries; clearly the reason for him coming downstairs in the first place was to find some replacements.

Sherlock shook his head at Greg and gave him his most stern I’ll-handle-it expression. He then crouched down, put his arm around Tristan and followed his sight line. “What makes them look like Daddy?”

Tristan was so much like Sherlock, it was uncanny; so he had to be handled in exactly the same way. His family had learned long ago that pronouncements such as this should never be invalidated, but explored instead.

“It’s simple,” the boy shrugged, apparently unperturbed, “Of course they aren’t Daddy but they have the same gray hair, they look the same age, some of them have the same smile…”

Tristan looked troubled then.

“You’re searching for that word, aren’t you?” Sherlock pressed, his voice barely audible. “You’ll find it; just think for a moment.”

Tristan screwed up his face to do as he was told and it took all of five seconds:

“Profile!” the boy spat out with glee, “They fit Daddy’s profile!”

Greg had to tamp down his horror as his son turned to him for approval, “That’s right, lad.” He then fished into the kitchen drawer for the batteries Tristan needed and handed them over, “Go on up and we’ll call you down for dinner when it’s time.”

Satisfied that he had made both his parents proud, Tristan bounded up the two flights of stairs and disappeared.

Greg waited until he could hear the door of his son’s room swing shut before saying exactly what had been on his mind from the moment he’d set foot in the flat.

“We can’t do this case.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lestrade,” Sherlock huffed, rocking back and forth on his heels as he studied the decorated Wall. “You need this case. This case needs you.”

“I have no idea what you’re on about –“

In a moment, Sherlock was at Greg’s side, flipping over each gruesome photo from the pile like a deck of cards.

“Tristan is right, as discomfiting as that may be. You fit the victims’ profile –“

“So you want me to end up like _this_?” Greg held up the worst of the lot and tapped at it viciously; a crime scene photo of a mangled set of limbs, the dead man’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. “Dying of a heart attack as a psychopath twists my body into some contortionist’s nightmare for his own amusement? No, thank you…”

Ignoring the obvious, Sherlock bounded over to the pile of newspapers on the coffee table and fished out the latest _Daily Telegraph_. He opened it to the advertisements and shoved it under his husband’s nose.

“Hickman Gallery? Again? Why? What –“

Sherlock rolled his eyes, “The killer is posing his victims in the style of Bastien Karnakov’s latest collection.”

“A collection being shown at the Hickman, I presume.”

“ _Yes_ , Lestrade.”

Greg muttered the name of the artist under his breath over and over until he made it to Sherlock’s laptop and entered the Hickman Gallery’s website into the search engine. Sure enough, Karnakov’s star piece, already snatched up and ‘not for sale,’ plastered the front page.

And it was a startling composition in its familiarity with one of the crime scene photos.

“ _Jesus._ ” Greg swallowed, his throat suddenly felt closed up and dry, “So while I’m interviewing for a new job as geezer rent boy tomorrow, you’ll see if Karnakov’s alibis check out.”

“Exactly.”

*   *   *

In the darkness of their bedroom, Greg lay on his back, seemingly alone with a million worries, schemes and outlines, schedules and contingencies for the week ahead – setting up a safehouse, as well as a separate residence for the duration of the operation, playing out the script in his head of what to say to the children, dropping them off with Mary and John (with the proviso that if they should need John as a Plan B, Mary would be all right with that), etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

So of course his genius husband, back turned to him at his side, could hear the creaky gears turning away in his head.

“Stop thinking and go to sleep.”

Greg swallowed the lump in his throat as he stared at the grey shadows and lines that made up Sherlock’s back, willing him to turn and face him, “Tell me what I’m thinking and your voice might put me to sleep, you prat.”

Instead, Sherlock flipped over on his back and slipped one graceful arm under Greg’s neck, nudging him gently until the older man’s ear was resting on his chest. This was a rare pose for their two bodies, but not unheard of. It hadn’t taken long in their relationship for Sherlock to read in Greg’s voice when it was his turn to comfort him.

It didn’t mean that the tone of his voice would change, however.

“Your six month hiatus from field work will be to your advantage on this case and will allow you to hide in plain sight. You have a tendency to overthink operations prior to their actual carrying out but have a good history of calmly thinking on your feet when called to duty. When we met, you were a three months undercover constable cracking a money-laundering male prostitution ring yourself. All of your colleagues’ covers had been blown at that point, yet you would not give up, you would not crack under their suspicions and you would not reveal yourself. Taking into account your personality and upbringing, your memories are unlikely to dim from that experience.

“As for myself, the dye job, American dialect and hipster wardrobe will give the impression of the perfect client profile, the bored nouveau riche billionaire web designer with the daddy complex who frequents these establishments. Mrs. Hudson will gladly stand by to help Mary should we need John’s involvement and Mycroft will coordinate with or without O’Leary to provide backup, not for my sake, or yours, as you well know, but for the sake of his niece and nephew having parents who remain alive and well to bring them up because he’s certainly not equipped to do that himself – with or without Anthea’s aid.”

A deep and meaningful pause ensued and all Greg concentrated on was trying to sync his breathing with his husband’s.

“That last dig at your brother is the only one you’ve got wrong, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Sherlock breathed into Greg’s hair, “Just trying to see if you were still awake.”


	2. Chapter 2

*

The Lucien Freud Wing of the gallery wasn’t due to open for another hour, and even though Karnakov had had his share of arrogant tourists ignoring the signs and tapping on the glass regardless, this one had a different air about him.

Bastien was in the middle of hanging an installation, but what he could see from a few feet away was pleasing to the eye. The lanky, ginger-haired young man outside with horn-rimmed glasses, wearing a Gang of Four vintage-ish T shirt and stovepipe black jeans hadn’t even bothered to cup his hands to the window and look inside, let alone tap on the glass.

Instead, he had set up camp on the pavement, his back to the floor-to-ceiling window, opened the heavy photography book he’d been carrying under one arm and began to read, placing his well-worn communist-era canvas messenger bag to one side. Bastien tried in vain to continue working, but he found himself distracted. The young man fidgeted as he read and every time he ran his long fingers through his curly mop of hair, it stuck out in alarmingly new and adorable ways. It was embarrassing to discover how easily he could become so smitten with just a few glances.

Still, he was too shy to approach him, so it was to his great relief that Vanya, his assistant, had broken the mood by appearing around the corner with their coffees, stepped over the long legs of the young stranger, and used her key to open the door and let herself in.

She looked over her shoulder as she handed Bastien his double cappuccino from the three steaming drinks nestled in their cardboard carrier. “Where’s Karl? And what’s with the handsome kid outside?”

“Karl? Called in sick, the bastard.” Bastien wiped his hands and self-consciously fixed his hair before taking the coffee, “And him? No idea. Hasn’t knocked.”

“Waiting for _you_ , by the look of it. I noticed he’s reading a retrospective that has your work in it. Probably wants your autograph,” Vanya took the other coffee meant for Karl out of the carrier and handed it to her boss with a wink, “Why don’t you go see if he likes vanilla lattes?”

At the notion, Bastien went as pale as the white walls around him, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught the young man looking at him with a shy smile before turning around quickly, no doubt embarrassed for having been caught and instead pretending to be engrossed in his book once more.

So, with as much courage as he could muster on absolutely no caffeine, the sculptor walked to the entrance and struggled to carry both drinks while unlocking the door and peeking his head outside.

“Hullo, there. Can I help you?”

The young man stood up then with wide steely-blue eyes, hugging the photography book to his chest and holding out an eager hand. His glasses were askew, but he was definitely adorable, “You’re – you’re Bastien Karnakov! I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you in any way. I know you don’t open for another hour so I thought I could just wait –“

Bastien had fans but rarely this good-looking (or charming), so he forgot he’d had a drink in one hand and reached out with it only to have the cap fly off and drench the tome and the Gang of Four tee in one motion.

“Oh dear God, I’m so sorry!” he blubbered. The cool, professional façade he’d struggled to develop over the years evaporated and he became himself, “Oh, and I’ve ruined your book! Come inside, quickly, and you can change into a smock I have and I’ll give you a new book, a first edition, in fact. I have one out back somewhere…”

Bastien picked up the canvas satchel by the strap and ushered the young man inside, “What’s your name?”

“Sidney. Sidney Havermeyer from New York.”

*   *   *

Sherlock “Sidney Havermeyer” Holmes knew within minutes – after changing into the faded denim shirt and accepting the cappuccino offered him - that Bastien Karnakov wasn’t a suspect.

He gave the installation area a good once-over, noted the piles of newspapers, various magazines (out of date by a good four or five months – can’t throw anything away), a desk piled high with odds and ends (five, no six, mobile chargers – he keeps misplacing one, buying another and finding the original later), and the laptop keyboard (with crumbs stuck between keys, no palm-shaped indentations, despite never cleaning the hardware – or letting his assistant do it, too paranoid at having something accidentally erased - showing that he was, like John, not a proficient typist, and was clearly the punch key- spacebar-press return variety).

By contrast, the killer was skilled, methodical, exacting, no muss/no fuss. Obsessive-compulsively clean and neat. Bastien Karnakov was nowhere near any of these things.

What Karnakov was, however, was talented. His art was disturbing, haphazard, but also unusually graceful. The killer definitely had good taste. As Bastien showed him around, Sherlock made note of every new piece, mentally comparing it to the various crime scene photos, as though checking them off in his mind, one-by-one. Each pose was impossible, anatomically and physically, to achieve in real life. The killer’s own ‘sculptures’ required breaking bones and dislocating joints (all post-mortem) to achieve the kind of verisimilitude of Karnakov’s work and the foray required a detailed knowledge of anatomy – at least in orthopedics. In any case, he could tell that the killer had succeeded in creating exact replicas.

Sherlock had reached the end of the new collection and so far matched up 14 of the 16 pieces to the victims’ poses. The killer had two left to go in order to complete his masterpiece and Sherlock took his time visually cataloguing every curve, every contortion, every indentation of those final pieces.

“This is everything you have.” Sherlock sounded sad, but not for the art.

It was because the killer was almost done.

Bastien appeared to be too busy basking in Sherlock’s interest and took more than a moment to reply, “Oh! Yes, this is all. You’re not disappointed, are you?”

“No!” Sherlock slipped from cold deduction-mode back into self-deprecating Sidney-from-New-York mode, “Never! It’s just as a big fan, you always want more, right? But then, there are probably bigger fans than me. I feel like such an idiot; tell me there’s somebody worse than I am at gushing over this stuff; it’ll make me feel better.”

“Oh, you’re so sweet,” Bastien grinned, clearly back in his element, “and nowhere near as bad as all that. I tell you, last month, I had a fan who spent over an hour staring at one of these pieces. Had this intense look on his face the entire time and took pictures with his mobile even though my assistant told him not to. In the end he was just too scary to discipline, if you know what I mean –“

“Really? What did he look like?”

“Oh, he was gorgeous, all right. Wore the most immaculate suit. Thirties. A friend of mine had to introduce him because I wasn’t about to approach him. But then he just – I don’t know – became this enthusiast all of a sudden! It was the strangest thing. Shoved his business card into my hand – wait, let me see if I still have it…I probably do. I never throw anything away…”

Bastien went over to his desk, opened a drawer that was filled to the brim with business cards, discarded pen tops and other detritus. Amazingly, he rifled through for only a few moments and fished out the pertinent one, handing it to Sherlock.

_The Tower Gentleman’s Club_

_Maximillian Cooper, CEO_

“I Googled the place, actually,” Bastien smirked, “They don’t have a website, but the word in chat rooms is that they specialize in older men. ‘Daddies.’ I don’t know where he got the idea of my proclivities since I prefer someone _closer_ to my age…”

Sherlock examined the card, fully aware that Bastien was staring a little too hard at him.

“Mind if I take this with me?”

The question and the finality it implied had broken the spell and suddenly Bastien looked lost.

“Sh-sure. Let me get that first edition for you,” he smiled too broadly and headed to the back offices.

Sherlock didn’t bother to wait, shoved the card into his pocket and headed out the front entrance onto the street. He had the data that he’d needed.

*   *   *

From the outside, one would’ve never known that a high-class male escort service was being run on the uppermost floors. One wouldn’t have been able to tell from the inside either, for that matter.

In the waiting area, Greg had had a difficult time keeping still once he was ensconced in the overstuffed sofa against the pink marble wall in front of the receptionist desk. He’d kept the pen to fill out the paperwork and was noisily tapping it against the leather on the sofa’s arm. He was having a bit of a crisis at the moment – due to being surrounded on all sides by men of a certain age who clearly looked fitter than he did, who must’ve had more sex in the past six months than he’d had in his whole lifetime.

It was more than a little ridiculous and he cursed Sherlock this time for having such misplaced confidence in him. What did his husband know anyway? Even if Sherlock still found him sexually attractive, it was completely biased on his part and certainly not a commercial commodity by any means. Was going back to work worth this much potential psyche annihilation? Look at these masculine Adonises! Greg Lestrade was a working-class bloke who’d never submit to an eyebrow wax if his very life depended on it. His tapping feet were aimed in the direction of the lifts; his whole body language screamed “Get me out of here.”

Damn the Yard. Damn Sherlock Holmes. He wanted to be home making cheese on toast for Tristan and Grace. This was insa –

“Greg LeSalle?”

His bowed head went up.

A pert little Miss appeared as though from nowhere, smartly dressed and very confident.

“Mr. Cooper will see you now.”

*   *   *

He’d been put in an office with mid-century modern furniture that seemed far too bright for the room and ended up waiting for another ten minutes. As it turned out, Greg had needed every scrap of time; the young woman had handed him a golden folder filled with things to read and sign. The medical questionnaire was particularly telling and darkly amusing. No, he did not take antihypertensive drugs or have a heart condition. It really was like being hired by a big corporation and in a strange, bizarre way, felt almost comforting. But only just.

“Hello, Mr. LeSalle.”

Greg looked up and met a pair of cold green eyes in the center of a face that was softly babyish and angular at the same time.

“Maximillian Cooper,” he offered a well-manicured hand, stopping to sit on the edge of the lucite desktop in front of him, “Call me Max. Can I call you Greg?”

They shook hands.

“Of course.” Greg felt a little nonplussed. “Do you always interview the new people? Seems a bit beneath you, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Best part of my job,” Max smiled, “But then I pick and choose who I decide to talk to.”

He pressed the button of a remote to his right and the widescreen TV lit up behind Greg, who turned to see a black and white recording of himself amidst the other men in the waiting room. The camera seemed to be coming from a high corner somewhere. As force of habit, Greg had initially made a point of scanning the room for any surveillance devices and hadn’t seen anything obvious.

He made a note of that for future reference.

“I could tell you didn’t want to be here. But you are. I want to know why.”

A rookie copper would’ve panicked that he’d been found out, but Greg had done this before. This part of the job, you never forgot how to do: lacing your fake life story with something real.

“Because I’m desperate, that’s why. Been divorced for a few years. Ex-wife has the kids. Don’t have enough to support them. Want to put them through university –“

“You’re a retired security guard with a lame leg.”

“Thirty years. Pushed out because of the shooting six months ago.”

“Can’t imagine the severance pay was much.”

“No, sir, it wasn’t.”

“Seems like you could get an honest job –“

“I’ve looked. If honest gets me my kids back, lead me to it. If not, let me sin.”

Greg expected an evil laugh of some kind; Max only gave him a hard stare. The length of time it took for him to study Greg made him uneasy and he shifted in his seat.

“You’re a very special commodity and I’d wager you don’t even know why, do you?”

Greg offered up only the smallest of smiles. It was easy; the sadness, the tiredness, the self-doubt in him wasn’t an act at all. “I’m sure I don’t.”

“The men in that waiting area are the type that come to me everyday - former bodybuilders, models, actors. Tell me what they all have in common.

“Hazard a guess.”

Greg raised an eyebrow, shifted his eyes about the room, licked his lips and shrugged, shaking his head.

Cooper didn’t so much sit as hover, “Narcissism.”

What the hell was this rich brat talking about?

“- Our clients tend to be young, awkward men who want to be taken care of. To compensate for that awkwardness, most of them became self-made millionaires by the time they were in their mid-twenties. They’re highly intelligent but socially inept. Many of them have contentious relationships with their fathers, if they have any relationship at all. The last thing they need is another male, an older one, making them feel even less confident about themselves.”

“But this is about sex,” Greg brought up his hands in exasperation.

“No,” Max moved to sit in the chair next to him, “This is about _companionship_.”

Greg wasn’t fooled; this kind of manipulation was why Cooper had been so successful in corporatizing the sex trade. On the surface, the company stayed to the right side of the line regarding illegalities, but in order to earn any real living as an employee, you had to cross it. And if any rent boy had crossed it, the company might have taken extreme measures to keep operations clean. Cooper owned The Tower, had filled the floors with other legitimate businesses, businesses that were at stake; the gentleman’s club was just an indulgence for him, a hobby, something a wealthy man-boy did to blow off steam, like playing golf or watching football.

Greg could tell from past undercover work that this git was all about control. People were either of use or not. At any rate, they weren’t human beings to him; they were things to buy, sell and trade. This was a person he wanted to put in prison and throw away the key.

Greg cleared his throat, licked his lips once more, rubbed his forehead and clasped his hands together.

“So where do I go from here?”


	3. Chapter 3

*

Mycroft had set him up as a website designer looking to diversify into Max Cooper’s conglomerate without warning him just how diverse the after-hours enrichment would be. In his head, Sherlock sensed it was too early to search for Greg on the screens but in his heart, he felt the need to scan the wall anyway.

It was an efficient setup, worthy of the younger generation’s need to dispense with the romanticism of the old and usher in the expediency of the new.

Cooper’s employees frequented the gentleman’s club at the end of their workday as though it were part of their job description. Instead of a wall of monitors showing various football matches, it was lined with screens showing the variety of older men the club offered as entertainment, six rows of ten at a time.

But the screens were hardly static; they showed the men in their flats – lounging about, grooming themselves, making dinner, doing all the mundane things you wouldn’t expect to see in a brothel-like setting. Once a client entered the rent boy’s abode, the screen reverted from color to black and white and eventually faded out until their headshot and employee number appeared onscreen, signifying that this choice had been taken and was no longer available, but if so desired, a future appointment could be made. Only the men belonging to the images remaining in motion and in color were left for sale.

Neat. Efficient. Exacting. No muss/no fuss. Attributes were beginning to slot into place.

Sherlock shook the natural inclination to admire the suspect from his mind. He was there to not only observe, but to make an impression as well. The quicker he could move in and prove that Max Cooper was the killer, the sooner he and Greg could be home for their children with Greg’s old job given back to him with honors. Still, the old thrill of drawing things out beckoned to him.

“Anyone catch your fancy?”

Sherlock turned to find a man close to his age in a vintage designer suit giving him a knowing smirk. The smile faded in a flicker of a second as he brought a hand from behind his back to shake, “Max Cooper, your host. And you are?”

Sherlock shook the hand offered him weakly, quickly reverting to his awkward alter-ego, “Sidney. I, uh, it’s quite a selection you have,” and turned back to the monitors.

Max, slim and half a head taller than Sherlock, got close enough to practically whisper his words, “This your first time in a place like this, Sid?”

It was painfully boring to switch on the personality and voice of the character he was playing, but Sherlock proceeded to ramble, describing an utterly dull existence of corporate web design, a painfully tidy loft in Manhattan that he rarely left, an embarrassing collection of near-mint, incredibly explicit Eiji Otsuka manga, and on and on and on, knowing that at some point, Max Cooper would stop him and get right to business, which predictably, he did.

“All of them have a different look, but they all have the same disposition…”

And that’s when Sherlock found Greg --

“Whoever you choose will put you at ease. He’s here for you…”

Out of the corner of his eye, he recognized his husband by the familiar manner with which he nervously worked product through his hair. It was the way that Greg was dressed that felt unfamiliar --

“Nothing about you will be strange or embarrassing to the man you choose…”

Someone had apparently shopped for him, and expensively, too: pressed dress shirt underneath a cashmere V-neck jumper. He was freshly shaven and had been given what looked to be a pricey haircut since saying goodbye that morning --

“You’re accepted here, Sid. So pick someone.”

Perhaps it was the way Max had spoken or something in his phrasing, because a lump was forming in Sherlock’s throat due to an impending sense of déjà vu. He could almost feel the direction of the wind on the rooftop at Bart’s again, sharing company with a long-dead nemesis psychopath and realizing with every word how he could so easily lose the people closest to him.

“How about _him_?” Sherlock indicated with a nod to where his husband was in the sea of monitors. He knew it was a waste of research to pick Greg, but the impulse proved instinctual nevertheless.

A soft chuckle reverberated behind him.

“You have excellent taste. But he’s _new_. And he’ll be taken in a moment, I wager –“

The screen refreshed and a different view was offered. Greg turned to something offscreen before moving to answer the door. As soon as his young client walked in, the colors on the monitor faded to black and white.

Sherlock’s gaze fell to Max’s reflection on one of the inactive monitors. Something about the way his voice caressed the word ‘new’ sent off warning klaxons in his head. A necessary bit of information, perhaps. So he decided to stir the pot with a little nervous laughter.

“I-I think I’d want someone more experienced then, no offense.”

“Ohhhh, none taken. Some people don’t like fresh meat,” Max exhaled, “Whereas myself?

“Can’t get enough of it.”

*   *   *

His name was Brandon and what killed Greg deep to his core was that he looked like a fully-grown version of Tristan.

_No. No, that’s not quite right. It’s about the man I don’t want to think about right now; that’s who I’m seeing in my head._

Brandon looked like a younger version of Sherlock.

For a moment, Greg almost panicked, afraid that Cooper had seen past the poor-man security guard gruffness of his cover, deciding to taunt him with such an uncanny doppelganger of his relatively famous husband. And for just a split second, he was ready to believe that none of this would really work.

That is, until the glass of wine he offered Brandon ended up shattered, its contents splattered on the stone tiled kitchen floor.

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry!”

The poor boy was shaking – it would’ve been clear to any professional who’d been paying attention and Greg mentally scolded himself for losing focus in the situation at hand. Nevertheless, his body ended up going on paternal autopilot, grabbing the nearest tea towel in trying to pick up the shards and mop up the spillage.

“It’s all right, lad. Why don’t you sit down on the sofa and I’ll bring you another glass?”

“Let me help you –“

“No; no need. Besides, wouldn’t want you to cut yourself,” By force of habit, Greg indicated Brandon’s feet, expecting to see them in socks (like he often did at home), and felt a little ridiculous after realizing the man had tightly laced (probably Gucci, Sherlock would know) wing tips on instead. “Please,” he recovered. “I think we’re both pretty nervous and could do with sitting down, don’t you think?”

Brandon, the sweet-faced man who didn’t look a day over 20 if he could manage it (but was apparently 35), obliged Greg and sunk into the cream leather with an audible sigh.

“You could tell. I’m embarrassed.”

Greg had swept up the mess and was already pouring their glasses of red. “Nothing to be embarrassed about. I should be the one apologizing for being entirely new at this – “

“No, it’s why I wanted you, in fact.”

Greg handed him the glass and motioned to the place beside Brandon, as though asking for permission to sit. The young man nodded.

Greg and Brandon clinked their goblets in a silent toast.

“You wanted me because I have no experience?”

“Well, yes. I’ve tried with other…”

At this point, Greg didn’t know the proper terminology to identify his half of the exchange, his eyebrows going up, his jaw set in a clench. “ ‘Men’?”

“Yes! I-I just, I can’t. Because, you see – God, you’ll laugh at me.” Brandon’s eyes shut so tight, the creases they produced alone looked painfully sharp.

“I will _not_ laugh at you. But you should laugh at me because there’s nothing about what I’m wearing right now that makes sense.” Greg took that moment to sit back and pull on the cashmere hem, “Five hundred pounds for a fancy jumper and it doesn’t even have reindeer on it –“

Brandon was in mid-sip and began coughing. Greg suddenly felt terrible and tried a few resuscitative pats on the back, “I’m sorry! Would you like some water –“

“No! No, I’m fine; It’s just…you’re just so…so…different.”

“Why? What were all the other men like?” At this point, Greg almost slid back into detective inspector mode.

“Just…intimidating, I guess.”

“Well, that’s a honest chap. Thanks,” Greg offered dourly, but only mockingly so, “It’s all right; I’m not offended. Don’t look so embarrassed again. No, really. What do you need? I really want to know.”

And Greg found himself meaning exactly that.

“I’ve never told anyone this,” Brandon started. “I didn’t even tell Mr. Cooper.

“I mean, part of the reason why I’m such a successful software developer is that I can sell anything without revealing anything about myself. I can _lie_ really, really well. But I don’t want to do that here. You see, because I’m – I’m a…virgin.”

The word hung heavy in the air.

Greg brought up one ankle to rest on the opposite knee and cleared his throat.

“You know there’s an American film about that and the main character’s got five years on you.”

It was risky to joke but Greg had taken the shot hoping that humor would win the day and it did. More importantly, it seemed the kid was a big fan and soon they were talking about films. Much of what Greg wanted to see (thrillers, spy films and bromantic comedies with cheap laughs) were frowned upon by the likes of his husband so it was nice to have someone get all the references, all the sly lines he’d committed to memory, for no other apparent reason than his own private amusement.

Greg didn’t even notice when they’d corked open another bottle of red, although he knew at some point they should stop drinking or the whole point of the evening would, well…go soft.

“Brandon,” Greg licked his lips, knowing the bottom one was stained purple partway (it’s why Sherlock only drank whites, despite Greg saying stained lips made him look debauched and perfect – _oh God let’s not think about that right this minute_ ).

Or maybe he should. Who could it harm? Greg pulled a memory from way back – when he’d just met the young Sherlock, a regular at every crime scene, slipping in and out of the shadows as though he thought no one would notice. Brandon proved to be nothing like Sherlock, despite the uncanny resemblance. Where Sherlock was full of extremes – at the same time withholding and brazen, loving yet cruel – Brandon was safely ensconced somewhere in the middle, that same area Greg believed he often felt he occupied. And that level-headedness, on better days, was an aspect he hoped was the stabilizing influence behind why his husband was still with him.

So Greg chose a memory that was about safe harbor, about a time when Sherlock was going through one of his withdrawals. When he was sick and vulnerable, it hurt Greg’s heart and made him angry, but if he wanted to be 100% truthful, it was also the rare situation that made Sherlock stay still with sleep, so that Greg could hold him for as long as he wanted to, without the young man getting bored and fidgety. Without him wanting to leave.

Brandon’s eyelids were beginning to droop a little and it was clear that he was intoxicated by the wine enough to stop being so self-conscious.

“ _Brandon_ ,” this time Greg caressed his name an octave lower, drawing out the syllables. How he ached for this to be Sherlock. “You must be worn out. Let’s undress, get under the covers and talk some more. What do you think?”

It happened so fast, the force of it almost physically knocked him over. Greg barely had enough time to register the younger man’s slow grin before Brandon had straddled him against the back of the sofa, grinding groin against groin and covering his mouth completely in a full open kiss.

It was savage. Jesus, what had this poor bloke been saving it all for?

But it was also sad, on Greg’s part. Because his body barely responded in kind. And he was ready to worry because Brandon would notice – and wouldn’t that be the bitter end of his career as wannabe rent boy?

It was more than likely the ferocity of the kiss that had taken his body some getting used to, so Greg took gentle hold of the side of the younger man’s jaw and pushed him back a little, slowing everything down until they were snogging at a languid, hypnotic pace. Oh, but he did miss this, too. The degree of want another man could have for him. And its level of responsiveness was _honest_. He could tell by now, with the rapport and chemistry that they’d established, that Brandon did want this, and apparently, very badly.

“Lad, let’s get to the bedroom, hmmm?” Greg’s voice was almost hoarse, almost breathless.

In the dark, he was sure that make-believe (coupled with memories of Sherlock) could produce the kind of result that would make Brandon’s first time an acceptable one.

*   *   *

Sherlock ended up picking one escort from a “best of” list Max had offered him. The entrepreneur had made no secret of the fact that he dabbled in what the club provided, and enjoyed his preferences just as much (if not more) as his clients did.

Those Max flagged were predictably silver-haired and fit Greg’s physical profile. The surge of adrenaline it produced in Sherlock at being on the right path was different this time, however. The general feeling was one of alertness caused by a specific growing sense of dread.

_Caring is not an advantage, brother. Unless you want to give up this consulting hobby after the wedding –_

Sherlock mentally interrupted Mycroft’s voice in his head with a non-vocalized, but deafening ‘shut up!’ that seemed to shake him deep from within. It took a great deal of restraint and inner cheek chewing to keep it hidden.

Ultimately, memorizing the list and tucking it away in his mind seemed to soothe him temporarily. It would have to do; there was no time for reflection or worry. He would have to play the part of the bashful client to his chosen ‘boy toy’ - who was more toy than boy – so that he could dispense with the arena of pretense ( _and video monitoring_ ) and proceed to the bedroom ( _where cameras were rendered pointless by lying in the dark_ ) post-coitus, smoking a borrowed fag given to him by ( _What is his first name? Deleted it, why does it matter. I’ve paid money so that it doesn’t matter_ ) potential Victim Next on Max Cooper’s _other_ list.

“So what’s it like being his favorite?” Sherlock laughed a little, using it to cover up the boredom on his face, the alter-ego air of nervousness he was growing to loathe.

“He said that? That I was his favorite?” The man was surprised.

Sherlock searched his hard drive of a brain for the name – _starts with a ‘T,’ something unbelievably posh – wouldn’t be surprised if Max had renamed him as a new employee –_

“What’s your real name?” Sherlock couldn’t help himself.

“Whaddyou mean? My name’s Tristan –“

For a shocked moment, Sherlock couldn’t move. Then a second later, a wave of disgust crashed over him; that he’d just been sucked off by a man with the same name as his own son. He turned slightly, pushed away every emotion coming to the surface and studied the man’s face, realizing in less than a second that it was a ‘stage’ moniker. He smiled. “It’s ‘what. do. you. mean,’” Sherlock enunciated clearly. “It’s all right.” He tried again, this time with more warmth, “I just find it hard to enjoy the evening if I know you’re lying.”

“ ‘S-s’all right. Sorry. Real name’s Terry. Guess my accent gives it away. Was I horrible?”

_Oh, no. Now Eliza Doolittle thinks he’s inadequate. Can’t waste time comforting him. Too much at stake._

Suddenly, Sherlock yearned for Greg. His husband would’ve put in for a good rejoinder; given some of his own bite in return.

Sherlock stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand and rolled over, half of his torso ending up resting on Terry’s chest.

“You were perfect,” he breathed, “That’s why I might be a little jealous.”

“You’re paying for me –“

“I’m paying for the illusion that you _prefer_ me. No one has to know; no one _will_ know. So what’s Max like? How often do you see him?”

“Lately? All the time. Except for Saturdays.”

Something about Terry’s tone of voice alerted Sherlock. So he propped himself up on one elbow to study the man’s face.

“Don’t tell me he observes the Sabbath.” It was a joke, but there was a secret something, just beneath the surface –

“Might as well be,” Terry said somberly, “It’s sad really. You don’t know?” he ended, once he could see from his expression that Sherlock didn’t understand. “Oh, you don’t. Thought you were close to him enough – seeing as how you got his ‘favorite.’ No, Max’s father, he’s on a ventilator, artificial life support. ‘Saturdays are for Father,’ he tells me. Been that way for as long as I’ve been here.”


End file.
